Omnishambles puts Tories in the thick of it

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David Cameron: government blunders ensnared a new wordMatt Cardy/Getty Images

Michael Binyon

Published at 12:01AM, November 13 2012

It must be galling to David Cameron that not only were the blunders that ensnared his Government in the summer swiftly dubbed an “omnishambles”, but that this piquant description is also likely now to stick around: the Oxford English Dictionary has named “omnishambles” as the UK Word of the Year.

Coined by The Thick of It, the word has swiftly gained currency, evolving rapidly in other contexts to describe any debacle or poorly managed situation, the OED says. It has spawned its own adjective, omnishambolic.

The word was swiftly adapted for Mitt Romney’s views on the London Olympics to give